Blog Tour - The Unadjusteds

The Unadjusteds book tour

Title: The Unadjusteds (Goodreads)

Publisher: Write Plan

Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopia, Fantasy 

Author: Marisa Noelle

Age Group: YA

Source: Pdf provided by TheWriteReads

I would like to say a big thank you to Dave from TheWriteReads for providing me with the Pdf from the publishers. This was one of my favourite reads so far of the year! I hope you enjoy my review and give this book a read.

‘It would be so much easier to just not care. Take a pill. Be like everyone else. But I can’t do that. I promised Diana.’

Review

I was instantly consumed by the action of this book. From the first few opening pages I already loved the strength of Silver, the main character, and was intrigued by the mutations brought to us in the book and quickly wanted to read on to find out how they came into existence. The author, Marisa Noelle, has such a strong and exciting way of writing. She manages to find that perfect balance between action and character narration which allows the story’s premise and world building to evolve naturally.

I haven’t yet managed to finish this book but I know that I will because I’m deeply obsessed  and intrigued by what will happen to Silver, her friends and family as well as how the adjusteds came into existence. So far, what already stands out to me in The Unadjusteds is the elements of sci-fi, dystopia and fantasy which all blend really nicely to create an exciting story and great characters. There is at the moment very little active romance in this book, but I really don’t mind that. There is a potential romance present between Silver and one of her long-term friends, one not too subtly hinted at, but I’m not concerned either way. I personally just hope that it doesn’t take away from the sci-fi intrigue and independence of Silver. I actually prefer less romance in heavily focused sci-fi books as I think that for me is more exciting!

I am personally a reader that struggles with reading eBooks and so I was very surprised and impressed that this book managed to keep me reading. The fact that I couldn’t put this book down even though it wasn’t given to me in my preferred format speaks volumes of success for the book itself. I know straight away once I start reading a book that I cannot put down that I have found one that meets my personal expectations and The Unadjusteds certainly does that. So, like me if you love strong female characters, sci-fi focused action and strong family values than this is a must read for you! Also, if you loved The Hunger Games then this book possesses similar vibes. Another personal similar read I felt it met the strengths of was This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada and would totally recommend you check out if you give The Unadjusteds a read.

‘I refuse to live in a world where genetically enhanced abilities are valued more than kindness and compassion. I’m determined to find a place away from it all. If I can figure out how to take the damn ankle collar off.’

Synopsis (Goodreads)

Sixteen-year-old Silver Melody lives in a world where 80% of the population has modified their DNA. Known as the altereds, those people now possess enhancements like wings, tails, and increased strength or intelligence. Although Silver’s parents created the nanite pill used to deliver these genetic modifications, Silver is proud of her unadjusted state.

However, when the president declares all unadjusteds must take a nanite, Silver has no choice but to flee the city with her father and some friends to prevent the extinction of the unadjusteds.

With Silver’s mother in prison for treason, Silver’s father is the unadjusteds’ only hope at finding a cure. But time is running out as Silver’s father is captured by the president’s almost immortal army. Vicious hellhounds are on Silver’s trail, and her only chance to recover her father involves teaming up with a new group of unlikely friends before all humanity is lost.

Key Quotes

'Gripping his shoulders, I force him to look at me. “You’re not alone,” I say, placing my hands either side of his face. “Please fight. Try. Hold on. The ambulance is coming.” Don’t be another Diana. I shudder against the memories. The foam and the bulging veins. It’s happening all over again. Blood trickles from the boy’s nose, dripping onto his fresh, white Tshirt. He drops sideways, falling from my grip. His head smacks against the cement.'

'So many things in this forest can kill me. A hellhound could end me in a few bloody seconds. Gritting my teeth, I clamp down on the building fear. I can’t let it win. “Let’s move.”

'Joe stands alone in a circle of dead wolves, blood glistening on his arms and face.'

Similar Reads

Slated, This Mortal Coil, The Hunger Games

Review - This Vicious Cure

This Vicious Cure (Waterstones Exclusive)

Title: This Vicious Cure
Series: This Mortal Coil (Goodreads)
Author: Emily Suvada
Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian
Publisher: Penguin books 

Age Group: YA

Source: Waterstones (purchased)

Review 

This Mortal Coil series is a Ya sci-fi series, with a twist, and one that will leave you both shocked and impressed by Suvada’s writing and storytelling abilities. I started this series a few years back when I discovered This Mortal Coil and was instantly consumed by the story itself and Suvada’s masterful writing skills. I hadn’t read the first two books in this series that recently and by the time I came around to This Vicious Cure I slightly regret not rereading them before this final book in the series. This is because I had forgotten some key plot points and due to this series being very heavy on the science explanations (which I think only make total sense if you don’t have a gap between reading the books in the series). Suvada certainly knows how to write an intriguing plot, major plot twists, and engaging characters. Having finally finished this series I was not disappointed and cannot wait to see what Suvada next decides to write.

This Vicious Cure is unlike the previous books because it is written from two different narrators. For some readers multiple narration does not always work, and I sometimes believe that for some books I’ve read this is true. However, this is not the case for This Vicious Cure. I think the double narration is hugely successful in this book because it allows us to view two different individuals approaches to surviving a pandemic and how far they will go to find a cure. Catarina is still one of the main narrators alongside another very important character that shall remain unnamed in this review to keep from spoiling the overall series. What I will say about the second narrator is that their responses and actions towards the pandemic and attempts to find a cure contrast strongly with Catarina’s. But what both narrators equally struggle with is the moral and ethical decisions and actions they have to make and do to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their attempts to save the rest of society.

‘When you’re working with a virus that could kill everyone on the planet, there should be no limit to the things your prepared to do to build a vaccine.’

Although there are a lot of strengths and reasons to enjoy this series finale I did find that there were some personal disappointments whilst I was reading it. In the previous books there was a huge interaction and development of relationships between Cat and the following characters: Cole, Leoben, Anna and even Dax. However, by This Vicious Cure a lot of these relationships were pushed aside and I personally felt they were forgotten about, which was rather disappointing. Although I do understand that the focus of this book was to finish the series by finding a cure and reaching a satisfying conclusion, I do think that the sudden lack of relationship developments was a weakness in this book. But apart from this I did really enjoy the series and its conclusion because it did leave me with a satisfying conclusion, there was plenty of shock twists that appeared and were answered, and overall I was left with hope that there is a future for these beloved characters. 

‘A new design is woven through the animals etched across him. A phoenix – its flaming wings inked in gold and crimson, its story tangled with the others – taking flight, burning into ash and being reborn as something new. It seemed appropriate for me.’

This Vicious Cure 

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

Two factions at war.

A plague that can't be stopped.

A cure that could destroy them all...

Cat's hacking skills weren't enough to keep her from losing everything - her identity, her past, and now her freedom.

Meanwhile, the person who's stolen everything from her is close to realizing a hacker's dream: the solution to humanity's problems in gene form. Or so she thinks...

But now a new threat has emerged - a threat that could bring the world to the brink of a devastating war.

Both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity's future, and that the centre of this war is Cat, and a race against the clock save millions of lives . . .

*The extraordinary conclusion to the This Mortal Coil trilogy - who will survive the oncoming storm?*

Key Quotes 

‘... It’s a Panacea – a piece of code that lets us alter our minds the same way we change our DNA. It should be the most important code in existence, but it's still missing one final, crucial piece.'

‘Every part of this lab seems genuine – every door, every tree and pebble has been perfectly coded to smell, taste and feel realistic. It’s a flawless simulation, barely distinguishable from reality. And there’s absolutely no way out.’ 

‘My entire existence was built on serving another person’s needs, but I’m not going to be pushed around any more. I want a life, I want to be free and I’m willing to fight for it.’ 

‘I don’t remember everything from when we were children…and I don’t want to. I don’t think there’s much benefit to carrying pain around forever. Memories can be precious, but sometimes they’re just a burden. A wound that won’t ever heal.’ 

'…A lot of people start out as twins and end up absorbing their sibling instead of being born with them. Shark embryos eat their siblings in the womb. What Cartaxus did was evil, but nature can be pretty vicious too.” “You must be fun at parties,” Anna mutters.’

Similar reads

Nemesis, Eve & Adam

Afterthoughts

So many Parallels to the Coronavirus we are facing right now, luckily with less Lurkers (thank goodness)

How far would you go to create a cure?

What would you do to survive a pandemic?

What books would you recommend for someone who liked this book and series?

Let me know what you loved about this book or series, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Review - Wildcard

Wildcard

Title: Wildcard

Series: Warcross (Goodreads)
Author: Marie Lu 
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

Age Group: YA

Source: Penguin Random House Pulp Shelf (this did not affect my opinion)

Review

Wildcard is the follow up to Marie Lu’s Warcross and it does not disappoint. I was just as thrilled and excited by Wildcard as I was by Warcross because the gaming action is still very much there but the stakes have been raised even higher for Emika and her friends. Wildcard still has the same light and easy writing tone that the first book had but the themes and issues of this book are much darker and could be triggering for some readers. As a result of the darker themes and issues I personally felt that they happened too suddenly in relation to the first book because this book looks at issues of suicide, murder, and drug addiction which arguably makes the book read like it shouldn’t belong to the first book at all. However, these issues though they may be challenging are important to discuss because they don’t just occur in literature but in our own world. If we avoid talking about difficult issues then the people facing them cannot or will not receive or ask for the help that they and their closest friends and family need. Though in relation to Wildcard these issues felt out of place for the previous book that did not deal with as such difficult issues.

Wildcard continues to be based in the setting of Japan and celebrates Japanese culture as there are references within the book to cosplaying as well as the continued focus on the gaming culture. Which is fantastic because it respectfully celebrates another culture and it exposes readers to a different culture rather than more popularly written ones such as America. There also continues to be subtle reference to other works of literature because during a game of chess between Hammie and Asher the game is described as such ‘It’s no static chessboard, either – the knights are real knights…the bishops replaced with fire-breathing dragons that now lunge their necks forward.’ When I read this scene I could only think about the influence of Harry Potter and the living chessboard that may have inspired Lu’s one.

In Warcross there was a LGBTQ+ relationship hinted at but in Wildcard this relationship is explicitly discussed and is important to some of the books other wider themes too. Roshan and Tremaine are literary representatives for the LGBTQ+ community and though there is not many romantic scenes between them the fact that there is not only a heterosexual relationship in this book is important. In relation to some of the books wider themes Roshan and Tremaine’s relationship links into the issue of social injustice and drug addiction. Most importantly, it is not because they are gay that their families would reject their relationship but because they are from different social backgrounds. We learn that Roshan comes from a wealthy family, ‘His mum is a prominent member of Britain’s parliament. His father owns one of the world’s largest shipping companies. His brother married some kind of duchess…’. Whereas Tremaine comes from a poor and troubled background, ‘my dad got shut away for shooting a store clerk…My mum tried selling me once, when she was high and ran out of money for another hit’ he even goes as far to state that ‘you try explaining that kind of upbringing to Roshan’s family. That their beloved boy is dating someone like me.’ For me the fact that it is not because they are gay but rather because they are from different social classes shows that family prejudice is not always because of issues with sexuality but difficulties in accepting other issues such as social class differences. 

Synopsis (From Goodreads)

Return to the immersive, action-packed world of Warcross in this thrilling sequel.

Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Now she can no longer trust the one person she's always looked up to - Hideo Tanaka. His plan: to wipe out all crime on Earth by ending the free will of its citizens.

Emika is determined to put a stop to him, but she soon finds out that someone's put a bounty on her head, and her sole chance for survival lies with the ruthless Zero. But his protection comes at a price.

Caught in a web of betrayal, just how far will Emika go to take down the man she loves?

Key Quotes 

'She reaches behind her back and pulls another gun from her belt. She throws it at me without warning. […] "For chrissakes," I blurt out,  holding the gun in front of me with two fingers. "What the hell am i supposed to do with this?"
"Fire when needed?" she suggests.

'We believe that too much power in the hands of a single entity is always a dangerous thing. So we fight that, whenever and wherever we can.’

‘The way he’s responding reminds me of code stuck in an infinite loop, going round and round in useless circles, or politicians who know exactly how to evade a question they don’t want to answer. People who can turn a question on you to take the heat off themselves.’

‘We fight for survival with everything we’ve got, as if the oxygen mask and the seat belt…might be the thing that saves us. That’s the difference between the real and the virtual. Reality is where you can lose the ones you love. Reality is the place where you can feel the cracks in your heart.’ 

Similar reads 

See Warcross post

Afterthoughts

Prejudices are complicated and are not just limited to issues of sexuality but also includes prejudices against race, social class and gender.

The importance of family is still a huge concern in this book as it was in Warcross, how important do you think family is?

What would you recommend to others if they enjoyed this book?

Review - Warcross

Warcross

Title: Warcross

Series: Warcross (Goodreads)

Author: Marie Lu 

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

Age Group: YA

Source: Penguin Random House Pulp Shelf (this did not affect my opinion)

Review 

Warcross is gamer’s story with a twist of romance. Marie Lu’s Warcross brings together a mix of genres that leaves the reader with a thrill – but is it for the romance or the gaming? Personally, I think having a balance between the gaming and romance in the book was great because it doesn’t alienate readers because there is something for a number of different readers in this book (although I will note that the main focus of the story is definitely geared more towards the gaming side). Lu’s writing is light and airy and she incorporates a number of text message formats within the text to appeal to modern teen readers but importantly this only develops the story rather than hindering it. Though the tone of writing is light some of the themes and issues explored by Lu are much darker (especially in the sequel). However, I did really enjoy this book, I haven’t read much like it for some time, but I really did race through the story just out of pure enjoyment.

What I loved about Warcross was not only that it is a different genre to other recent books I’ve read, mainly fantasies like Sarah J. Maas’s series’, but because the setting is rather refreshing. Usually most young adult books are set in America, very rarely anywhere else, expect Warcross isn’t. Instead we are based in Japan and this was really exciting because as readers we get to engage with a different country and the possibilities this brings along with it such as allowing us to engage with cultural differences. In particular Japan is one of the major developers of the gaming industry so it makes sense why Lu would have wanted to base her story in the heart of Japan. With the major focus of Warcross being about gaming this also brought us as readers an exciting protagonist who challenges gender stereotypes. Emika, the protagonist, is a young woman who loves gaming and is a great literary representation of someone who doesn’t let her gender dictate what she can or can’t enjoy. More importantly, Emika is also a hacker and great with coding, something we usually associate with men being better at or generally having more enthusiasm for, but Emika proves that gender doesn’t have to define what your abilities allow you to achieve ‘I’m a good-great-hacker’ and she loves ‘Harry Potter and Warcross and League of Legends and computers’. However, Emika isn’t the only young woman to love gaming as one of her teammates and later her friend Hammie shows as she is another positive representation of someone who not only loves gaming but also has a love for chess. Without the representation of young woman like Emika and Hammie in books young woman in real life might feel isolated and like they don’t fit in because they don’t behave like ‘normal’ girls should or because they don’t see themselves represented enough of the time in other books.

Although the overriding theme of this book is about gaming and competing in the Warcross game there are other important issues that are explored in this book. Some of the other issues include social injustices, LGBTQ+ representation, and the importance of asking for help. In particular something Hammie says to Emika is one of the more outstanding concerns of this book, the issue of struggling to ask for help. The reason why this resonates with me is because in real life so many of us struggle with actually asking for help when we need it and we shouldn’t have to struggle when we have people around us who want to help. I leave you with Hammie’s words ‘You remind of myself from years ago… I always offered help- but I refused to accept any. My mother scolded me about that. Do you know what she told me? When you refuse to ask for help, it tells others that they also shouldn’t ask for help from you. That you look down on them for needing your help. That you like feeling superior to them. It’s an insult, Emi, to your friend and peers… Let us in’.

Warcross uncovered

Synopisis (From Goodreads)

When a game called Warcross takes the world by storm, one girl hacks her way into its dangerous depths.

For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn't just a game - it's a way of life. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships - only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.

Convinced she's going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when she gets a call from the game's creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year's tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. Emika's whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she's only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Key Quotes 

‘What must it be like to have a perfect life? To be a superstar beloved by all? To be able to pay your bills on time and buy whatever you want?’ 

‘It is hard to describe loss to someone who has never experienced it, impossible to explain all the ways it changes you.’ 

'Everything's science fiction until someone makes it science fact' 

‘Most people never really observe their surroundings; ask anyone what the person sitting nearby was wearing, and chances are good that they couldn’t tell you.’ 

Similar reads

Ender's Game, Mind Games, Ready Player One, Snow Crash

Afterthoughts

Has there been a time when you've needed help and not asked for it, what would you do differentlty to help yourself next time, now knowing that help is available.

Are you into gaming? Do you feel like you don't fit into the 'normal' idea of what it means to be a boy or girl?


What other recommendations do you have for readers that want something similar to Warcross?